SEO Safe Browsing

26Feb2018

What does Safe Browsing mean?

Safe browsing is a system built to identify unsafe websites, which then sends a notification to the webmaster to inform him on the status. Malware is usually installed without a user’s permission. If for some reason the system detects the fact that your website is unsafe, by knowing it you can protect yourself from it.

Thanks to Google’s Safe Browsing technology, which scans their web index on a daily basis, people are notified which websites threaten users’ privacy and safety. These websites fall into two categories: malware sites (they install malicious software onto users’ computers), and phishing sites (they can get your username and password to use your private information).

Why is safe browsing important?

If your site is listed as Malware, your visitors are warned not to enter in your site and you will lose many visitors/clients. Google’s Safe Browsing technology detects thousands of malware websites every day. Users are warned in Google search, or in the browser by the potential harm these websites can have. Your website can still be infected, and your webmaster won’t even tell. That’s why it’s important to use a very accurate technology that deals with this kind of issues.

How to fix this problem

First, you need to diagnose your website. Use this link to do that http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=<your-site-URL-here>. Then, you need to go over Diagnostics -> Malware section to check out the information on the malware issues you have. Once you fix your problem, click on the “request a review” link. This will review your website for the next few hours.

Finding malware is not that easy. You need to check more than the source code of your webpage. Visit the page from various places, like search engines, direct visits, using different browsers, or access it from different IPs.

Other ways you can keep your website malware free, is to keep your system updated, and change your passwords if you detect any unusual activity. Here is a video explaining more about malware, and what you can do to prevent it.